TV star, author, and animal rescuer Ellen DeGeneres talks about her tough childhood, the choice she made that unlocked her joy — and where you'll find her on weekends

Entering the sunny, welcoming offices of The Ellen DeGeneres Show in Los Angeles, it's the visitor who gets the star treatment. "Lemon water? Juice? Tea? Coffee?" asks DeGeneres as she ushers her guest to a couch that's as fluffy as a cloud. The soothing cream-colored space is decorated with quirky objects DeGeneres has handpicked over the years, like the portrait of a deer with hilariously oversize ears. "I love stuff like that," she says; then a concerned look suddenly flashes in those sapphire eyes. She pulls back a comfy-looking chair and offers it up. "Hey, would you rather sit here? There's not so much glare."

More From Good Housekeeping

DeGeneres, 53, is nice like that. The comedian and daytime talk show host, who's wearing skinny jeans and a white T-shirt under a tailored gray blazer, admits she prefers being on the Q side of Q & A's. Nevertheless, she's gracious and accommodating. (Her assistant even called ahead to say there was a good chance DeGeneres would be early for her date with Good Housekeeping, something that normally never happens in a celebrity interview.)

Not that DeGeneres is a typical showbiz type in any way. The former T.G.I. Friday's waitress from Metairie, LA, remains relatable even with a shelf full of Emmy Awards and a list of credits that includes her sitcom, movies, hosting the Oscars, and writing best-selling books (her latest, Seriously...I'm Kidding, is out this month; ). Though her work schedule keeps her plenty busy and inspired, she's equally passionate about her pets, her garden, and her days off spent hunting for antiques.

Satisfied that her guest is as comfortable as can be, DeGeneres sits cross-legged and opens up in a candid conversation, proving once again that her greatest talent — aside from being remarkably nice — is simply being herself.

Good Housekeeping: You always seem so optimistic and have such a positive outlook on life. Does that come naturally to you?

Ellen Degeneres Well, I'm definitely happier than I've ever been. I assume tomorrow I'll be happier than today, because things are great. I have a great career and I have wonderful fans who really are supportive and loyal — because I'm not hiding anything from them. So, on the spectrum of happiness, I'm pretty high up there.

But I have a healthy dose of reality. The world's a scary place, you know? It can be really sad and stressful and negative. I try to counterbalance that. I believe everything in life is energy. If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that. I really want my time here to be positive and productive.

GH: You're extremely productive! How do you juggle everything?

ED: I like being busy and juggling a lot of things at the same time. I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I've started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I've written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun. We've had just about everybody on the show that I can possibly imagine. But there are always new, interesting people coming up.

GH: Life wasn't always so easy for you. You've talked about the tough time after your sitcom was canceled years ago. You had trouble finding work, and the relationship you were in broke up. What got you through that period?

ED: Drinking, really. [Laughs] No, I think it was probably a necessary time for me, though I would not have wanted to hear that at the time. I had been on a track where I kept telling myself, I'm going to be successful; I'm going to be famous. And then it stopped. I had done a sitcom and a movie and hosted the Emmys, and all of a sudden, I lost everything. As someone put it at the time, I was suddenly like a Ferrari in neutral. If you get to a place where something negative happens and you go, OK, what do you want me to do? Let me sit still and listen to this, then you're almost there in terms of understanding life. One rough patch is not the big picture. Now, when things don't work out, I try to go, OK, I guess I'm not supposed to do this particular thing.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

GH: That sounds like you're talking about faith. Does it play a big role in your life?

ED: Faith is part of who I am, yes. I was raised Christian Scientist. The most important thing I saw every single week on the wall at Sunday school was the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's what I got out of church and, to me, it's still the way to live. My dad is still Christian Scientist. My mom's not, and I'm not. But I believe in God, and that there's a higher power and an intelligence that's bigger than us and that we can rely on. It's not just us, thinking we are the ones in control of everything. That idea gives me support.

More From Good Housekeeping

GH: Judging from all the cheering and dancing in your studio audience, it's pretty clear you get a lot of support from your fans, too. That must feel great.

ED: It is great! There are probably people out there who have been my fans from when I did stand-up, and they never wavered. If those people are reading this magazine, thank you. For new people all of a sudden discovering me, that's great, too. Oprah left her show this year, so I'll hopefully have some new fans who aren't watching her every day. But there are always new people that just discover you. It's amazing how many people I get who are either at home sick, recovering from something, or in the hospital for some reason. New fans are always like, "I've never seen your show before and I was home recovering from surgery and...you're funny!" So the more people who get sick, the better for me, is how I look at it. [Laughs]

GH: Your mom is one of your biggest fans. You reserve the best seat in the audience for her. How has she been a model for you?

ED Certainly, she has persevered. My mom had some really bad things happen in her life, and she's a trouper. She's tougher than I am, I'd say. When my parents divorced, it was my mother and me, by ourselves in an apartment. At that point, we kind of became roommates. I was 13 years old. She'd been married for almost 20 years, and I watched her go through a tough time, trying to date, trying to figure things out. She dated some horrible men whom I had to kick out of the house. So, at 13, I kind of became an adult and was taking care of...watching her struggle. It made me go, Oh, you're my mom, but you're just a human being. I saw her in a different role all of a sudden.

GH: Comedy must have been a source of comfort for you.

ED: I was quiet as a kid and wasn't funny until I was a little older. Then I remember being funny, because I remember people laughing. But I was more of the sensitive type, taking care of injured animals I found. But I was aware of all the stuff nobody in my family was talking about. Everything was fine all the time. I was like, Really? It doesn't seem like it.

I watch people's behavior and notice things. I think that's why I became a comedian. I notice how stupid the things we do are. You know, like writing the word "over" on the bottom of a letter. As if someone's just going to throw the letter away without trying to turn it over first! Or, when you taste something that tastes bad, you always ask someone else to taste it just to make sure. I started noticing all these behaviors. Then I started writing songs, and that turned into comedy.

GH: So tell us, what makes you laugh these days?

ED: My animals. I have three kitties: George, Chairman, and Charlie. And then two dogs, Mabel and Wolf. They make me laugh. They make me calm. They fill me with awe. I'm in awe, for instance, when my dogs know exactly when it's time to go and get in the car. Even though they speak their own language, they still understand us. I'm in awe of these little tiny moments all the time. Like the other day, we showed a video on the show of a cat and a dolphin interacting. I mean, it was insane! The cat was on the edge of a pier, and a dolphin came up out of the water, and they started nuzzling each other! Amazing!

We can stop and appreciate these things, or we can sit and worry about what's going to happen to us two weeks from now. I'd rather focus on the amazing things that are happening right in front of us. Animals help us do that.

I also feel good because I saved my animals [DeGeneres is a big supporter of animal charities like the Gentle Barn (gentlebarn.org), a sanctuary for abused animals in California, and the Humane Society of the United States (humanesociety.org)]. So I know I'm giving them security and comfort, and that they're safe. I do wish I knew the stories of who they were before I got them. But to rescue animals or to just have animals in your life, they give you so much more than you give them.

GH: Speaking of giving, Halloween is coming right up. Will you be giving out candy at your door this October 31?

ED: The last time I did anything like that, I had a disguise on. I was at my door (I lived in a different house then), and people would come on up and just hold their bags out. They weren't even dressed up in costumes. They didn't even say, "Trick or treat." I ended up going, "Trick or treat?!" like I was yelling at them. They were just teenagers who wanted free stuff! It made me kinda mad.

GH: Can you share how you got to be so honest about who you are?

ED: I can't imagine doing it any other way. I mean, you get used to living with secrets, because I did. There are people out there hiding all kinds of things. People who have all this success and all this fame and all this money, and yet there are secrets that they think if we found out about, it would be over for them. And it's a horrible way to live whether you're famous or not. You could just be somebody at home with a bunch of kids, and hiding something from the ladies at the PTA. That's a horrible way to live.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Even though I had a big foundation with my career and years of work, it just divided everyone when I came out. Simply my saying I was gay — even though I was the exact same person — divided everyone. People stopped watching the show, so some advertisers pulled out. It didn't matter that I was a good, devoted, loyal employee. I mean, I showed up on time. I never did anything wrong. I was kind. I was easy to work with. And yet it was the dollar that mattered more. It was just a huge dose of reality for me. But losing it all really gave me time to realize that all this stuff is very fleeting. If success is really dependent on someone liking you or not liking you, and you have to teeter on that kind of tightrope of how you're supposed to act and how you're supposed to look and who you are, it's just not a healthy way to live. Now I get to be me every single day and not have to worry about hiding anything at all.

More From Good Housekeeping

GH: Do you think of yourself as an activist?

ED: I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights. Above all, I strive to be the best I can — to be better than I was yesterday and better tomorrow.

GH: Are you someone who does things around the house?

ED: Well, I love houses, so I am constantly decorating and redesigning. We never owned a house when I was growing up. We rented, and we moved about every two years, just far enough to have to start at a new school. Also, my mother was a real estate agent for a little while, so I was always looking at houses with her. We couldn't afford to buy one, so it was a frustrating thing as a kid. You're imagining, This is going to be my room, and then it was like, "Oh, we can't afford it." "Well, why are we looking at it?"

So then, when I started making money, I bought a house and fixed it up, then moved on to the next one. Designing is my hobby. If I didn't do what I do for a living — at some point when I don't do this for a living — I'll probably just do design work. I love finding really special pieces of furniture. [DeGeneres did a segment on her show with an Antiques Roadshow expert.] I enjoy putting rooms together. I like looking at something that needs tweaking and knowing what it could be. I like seeing something as a blank canvas and making it better.

GH: Do you collect anything in particular?

ED: I collect old portraits. They're all just interesting pictures of people, and you just kind of wonder who they were and what they were. There's a guy — I don't know who he is, but he's wearing a suit. He's got his arms folded, and he looks like he sold insurance or something. I'm just wondering why someone painted him. They're all anywhere from probably 1910 through the 1950s, and they're all really, really cool.

GH: By the way, any household chores you enjoy?

ED: Well, I'm not that good at making the bed. But I don't mind a vacuum cleaner, and I don't mind dusting. I guess my main thing, as I said, is putting rooms together and finding really special pieces of furniture. We [Ellen married actress and author Portia de Rossi in 2008] have a farm, and I've created all these beautiful hammock places and little areas to sit and look at the mountain.

GH: So you really do sit still from time to time?

ED: Meditation is helping me learn to sit still. Twenty minutes of meditation in the morning is a nice way to start my day. If you can actually sit still and really get to that place of silence, you realize what's important and what's not important. Little things don't usually get to me anymore. My life is really good. I don't have a lot to complain about.

GH: You look great. How do you stay looking so young?

ED: I don't know. My brother looks really young, too. People have always thought he was my younger brother, and he's actually four years older than I am. I've only been vegan for three years, so I can't credit that, because up until I was 50 I was eating meat all the time. I guess it's that I take care of myself and I work out. And I don't pay attention to the number of birthdays. It's weird when I say I'm 53. It just is crazy that I'm 53. I think I'm very immature. I feel like a kid. That's why my back goes out all the time, because I completely forget I can't do certain things anymore — like doing the plank [a strength-building exercise] for 10 minutes.

GH: If you could be anonymous for a day and have no one recognize you, what would you do?

ED: I'd love to just go to a restaurant. I like sitting at outdoor restaurants; it would be nice to go someplace on the street and not worry about somebody taking my picture while I'm about to take a bite of something. Even if we're going out to dinner and I'm happy with my outfit or my hair or whatever, they could get you at one turn where you're opening your mouth — and then they've got that picture. Not that I pay attention to all that. I don't look at those magazines, and I don't really read any blogs. I don't really care what they say and what they do with those pictures. But it would be nice to just go have dinner sometimes.

GH: What accomplishment are you most proud of?

ED: The most important thing for me is to know that I represent kindness. I'm glad I'm funny. I'm glad I make people happy, because that's very important. But I'm proud to be known as a kind person. You listen to any monologue on late-night TV or just in general, to people talking, and there's always a joke at someone's expense. It's sarcasm; it's nasty.

Kids grow up hearing that, and they think that's what humor is, and they think it's OK. But that negativity permeates the entire planet. I think that's where bullying comes from. I mean, I grew up watching Dick Van Dyke and Lucille Ball, and they were nothing but sweet and funny. It wasn't "negative comment, negative comment, laugh track." So I'm really proud I'm not adding to the negativity. I'm proud that for the hour my show is on television, I'm not being mean, and I'm hopefully helping one other person go, I'm going to be kind. Because then it all just kind of spreads, and the world is a little nicer out there.

"I don't like clutter. I firmly believe there is a place for everything and everything should be in its place. And I know there's a name for people like me: neat.

It's astounding to me how much stuff we all have! Our stuff is piled on top of other stuff. There's even a name for the people who have the most stuff. They're called hoarders. Back in the day, they were just called grandmothers.

If you want to get rid of stuff, you can always do a good spring-cleaning. Or you can do what I do. Move. I've moved about 10 times over the past 15 years. I don't move for the sole purpose of getting rid of stuff. I'm not crazy. I also move so that I never have to wash any windows. 'Is that a smudge? Time to pack it up. Let's go.'

My mama might be similar to me as far as moving around goes, but as far as clutter is concerned, she's a little different. When she moved into the house she lives in now (I think she's gonna stay there for a while — they say the 32nd time is the charm), she made it a point to tell me how excited she was because she was going to downsize. I was so proud of her. I went over to help her settle in, and I assumed when I got there I wouldn't have to unpack much more than a pillow and a spoon. Not so.

Let me share with you some of the items Betty 'I Am Downsizing' DeGeneres asked movers to wrap up, place in a box, seal up in the box, put in a van, and move into a whole new house so that I could cut open the box, take out the items, and unwrap them:

A three-hole punch

A single-hole punch

A VHS tape of Abs of Steel

An unopened VHS tape of Hip Hop Abs

A harmonica

Another harmonica

A third harmonica

A rusty sifter

A colander from 1953

Biscuit cutters

Many of those items have moved 32 times.

I could not believe how much stuff my mama still had, but it's because we all justify holding on to things. A lot of people hold on to clothing just for the sentimental value. They say, 'I can't get rid of this jacket. I wore it on my first cruise.' But it doesn't fit anymore, and the shoulder pads make you look like a 1980s football player who loved the color salmon. I'm guilty of it, too. I still have the shirt I wore my first time on Johnny Carson's show. Only now I use it as a tablecloth at dinner parties. It was very blousy.

It's not just clothing we hold on to. It's old electronics and furniture, and I'll tell you one thing I recently discovered in my own home — lotion. Portia hoards lotion. She has every kind of lotion there is — and there's a lot. There's lotion for your face, for your hands, for your feet, for your body. Why? What would happen if you put hand lotion on your feet? Would your feet get confused and start clapping? Each kind says it has something special in it — aloe, shea butter, coconut, cocoa butter, vanilla, lemon extract. That's not lotion. That's one ingredient short of a Bundt cake.

My point is I think it's important to get out from under those old cereal boxes and harmonicas. It's freeing. Plus, you can get good money for stuff on eBay. A 'vintage' colander goes for just under $3.50. Mama's gonna be rich!"